Author Topic: Sound card recommendations (Read 355 times)

hubsonfire · « **on:** July 08, 2004, 03:29:26 PM »

Heya gang,

I'm looking at getting a new soundcard. What are some favorites of the AH crowd, and are there any manufacturers/card types that have been problematic?

I'm really looking for a bang-for-the-buck card; I don't watch DVDs, listen/rip MP3s, or do much of anything on this PC aside from play AH2 til my eyes bleed, so I'm not even sure if I need anything like 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 sound (Want, on the other hand, yeah I want all of it

), but I'd still be interested to know what you guys have/like/hate.

Thanks!

Boat · « **Reply #1 on:** July 08, 2004, 08:26:59 PM »

I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. It's not for the real audiophile but from the description of your needs I think it would work quite well and the price is reasonable.

Modern motherboards offer very good sound soulutions built right in but I read somewhere that they do exact a price by slowing your system just a tad as oppossed to a dedicated card.

MOIL · « **Reply #2 on:** July 09, 2004, 03:01:17 AM »

If you really like good sound {games & all other apps}
Get the Creative Labs Audigy2
The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is not bad, has limited support and is of a dying breed. It scores a little low in the gaming dept.
How much did you have to spend?

Boat · « **Reply #3 on:** July 09, 2004, 10:15:54 AM »

The post said he wasn't interested in music or any applications other than AH2. The Audigy 2 Gamer is $110 at New Egg, the cheapest Audigy 2 is $90. The Santa Cruz is $36 and sounds great to my ears.

MOIL · « **Reply #4 on:** July 09, 2004, 12:58:14 PM »

I fully understand that, but there is a reason the Santa Cruz is ONLY $36. People change, platforms change, games & apps change, Turtle Beach has limited support, very few updated driver sets and doesn't support certain apps very well.
I'm not here to say the Santa Cruz is a complete peice of junk or put someone down for using one.
I know the Audigy2 costs more, that's why I asked how much he was willing to spend. But even if he is on a tight budget or doen't want to spend more than $40 I would still suggest a S/C other than the Santa Cruz.

C-Media CMI8738-LX or CMI8738-MX
VIA ENVY 24HT-S 6ch
CT-4750 128 PCI
Are all viable choices
Heck, I have a few Sound Blaster Live 5.1's in my shop I'll sell ya for $20.

Hajo · « **Reply #5 on:** July 09, 2004, 01:24:34 PM »

Don't get an Audigy or Audigy2 if your mobo has Via chipsets!

Bang for the buck SB Live 5.1 for 30 dollars at any Best Buy.

The Audigy has issues with Via chipsets according to Creative Tech.

I know...tried to install one and ended up reformating the HD.

Orig · « **Reply #6 on:** July 09, 2004, 05:56:09 PM »

I got my audigy2 ZS at newegg.com for about $80 and it works just fine on my VIA KT266A based Athlon mobo. You can get the OEM version for $70ish.

Boat · « **Reply #7 on:** July 09, 2004, 06:04:19 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MOIL

I'm not here to say the Santa Cruz is a complete peice of junk or put someone down for using one.......
But even if he is on a tight budget or doen't want to spend more than $40 I would still suggest a S/C other than the Santa Cruz........
Heck, I have a few Sound Blaster Live 5.1's in my shop I'll sell ya for $20.

You mean it's only a partial piece of junk? I don't know why you are intent on putting this card down but actually it's gotten excellent reviews across the board. It's a three/four year old card and that is why the price is low just like the price is low on SB Live cards. I've owned both a SC and a SB Live and the SC is far superior. Show me one bad review or one app that doesn't work with a Santa Cruz.

Ghosth · « **Reply #8 on:** July 10, 2004, 08:12:38 AM »

SB PCI512

Has fewer hardware conflicts than either the sb live or audigy.
Should be below 50$ now. Good quality sound with minimal impact on your cpu cycles.

Personally I've had one turtle beach & while it worked I felt it wasn't the same quality as a SB.

MOIL · « **Reply #9 on:** July 10, 2004, 01:45:55 PM »

Boat states:
"You mean it's only a partial piece of junk? I don't know why you are intent on putting this card down but actually it's gotten excellent reviews across the board. It's a three/four year old card and that is why the price is low just like the price is low on SB Live cards. I've owned both a SC and a SB Live and the SC is far superior. Show me one bad review or one app that doesn't work with a Santa Cruz"

As usual, there is always the one guy who uses a PC product that claims "works perfect for me", never had an issue, and so on.
Hubs obviously doesn't have much experience in hardware/software {no offence Hubs} so I would hate to see him pick up a Santa Cruz somewhere for cheap, then be back on the BBS asking for help for this problem or that driver or whatever.
It would make more sense to steer him towards something that is a little better supported and still sounds great.
I'm not going to get into some debate about sound cards with you, if like using the Santa Cruz and it works well for you, then great! Keep using it, wasn't posting to try'n make "you" change your sound card likes & dislikes.

Boat · « **Reply #10 on:** July 11, 2004, 10:01:40 PM »

Interesting read here
on sound cards and game play with a few recommendations.

streakeagle · « **Reply #11 on:** July 12, 2004, 02:32:59 PM »

SBLive! would not work with my ASUS TUV4X motherboards (VIA chipset)... it would crash so hard shortly after bootup that the disk would need to be reformatted. I ditched SBLive for the Santa Cruz and completely forgot about this problem.

2 years later (this past year), friend and co-worker of mine built a P4 computer with a motherboard using a VIA chipset. His windows registry would get corrupted and have to be rebuilt every time he started his computer. I did extensive analysis. After rebuilding the computer a few times, it became apparent the problem only occurred after installing the sound card: an SBLive! He ditched that in favor of onboard sound and the problem went away. He now has a Santa Cruz and loves it.

SB PCI 512 works with my ASUS CUV4X (VIS chipset) most of the time, but caused stability issues with some 3d sound intensive games... Jane's USAF in particular. While it supposedly offloads work from my CPU, I always observed equal or better performance without the stability issues from the onboard sound. This card sounds good, but seems to slow down my games a tad while doing its job.

In short, Creative Soundblaster products have given me nothing but trouble in VIA motherboards.

Santa Cruz works in all of my computers. Early drivers had terrible DirectSound support, I always had to turn down or disable hardware acceleration to get usable sound. The latest drivers solved most of the issues.

The one remaining issue I have that still forces me to reduce hardware acceleration is AH (and now AH2). The sound would periodically cut out. The latest AH2 patches changed something though. Now the sound shifts to a lower volume level rather than completely cutting out. So, I still have to reduce hardware acceleration by 2 notches to eliminate that problem.

In all of my other games, it works flawlessly since the last driver release. I contacted tech support about AH2. Their reply is that there are no plans for any further patches for the Santa Cruz. However, they have two newer cards out. One is better than a Santa Cruz, the other is a budget card slightly less capable than a Santa Cruz. I have no experience with the newer cards and therefore can't say how they compare with the Santa Cruz which has served adequately. A quick look at the comparison charts show that the Santa Cruz actually has a few features the new "high end" card does not... in particular DSP hardware acceleration.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #12 on:** July 12, 2004, 06:03:46 PM »

I appreciate all the input, guys. I built this PC over the winter, and am using the dinosaur-esque SB PCI 128. Its getting a little long in the tooth, and I thought I'd see what experiences I could dig up through the AH community. I'd heard some vague warnings about some of the Creative cards, but mine had been relatively trouble-free. Now I'm dealing with an I/O port assignment issue that won't allow me to enable my gameport (which means I can't hook up my dual throttle), and I'm getting some noise from AH2, hence the idea to upgrade.

I built this PC around the ASUS A7N8X-X mobo (2400 xp cpu), and, not having the documentation handy, I'm not sure what chipset it uses- I think its the nForce2, but I'd have to check.

Anyhow, thanks for the feedback; I always like to dig around and see what 'users' think of hardware, instead of what the sales rep says.

Cheers,

MOIL · « **Reply #13 on:** July 12, 2004, 10:50:14 PM »

Yes Hubs your MB has the NVIDIA nForce2 400 + MCP chipset.